Help wanted but not available

Where have all the workers gone? This question is plaguing local employers as much as it is employers around the nation.

One Catoosa County business that depends on hiring professionals from out of state is having to modify its hours to make working there more attractive. Even with a potential employee pool as large as the country, they can’t find staff.

The unemployment rate for Georgia right now is around 3.1%. That’s low and gives the impression that most people who want work have it. But the way the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the unemployment rate can be confusing.

If you are unemployed, but for some reason have not looked for a job in four weeks (maybe you’re taking a little break or have gone back to school), you are not part of unemployment statistics. You’re just some dude or dudette out there.

So when stats are measured, you and all your fellow folks who haven’t looked for work in the previous four weeks are not included in the unemployed column. The rest of us assume you just don’t need or want a job, and we think the number of unemployed is lower than it really is.

Maybe there are enough people out there but they are not vigorously seeking employment for one reason or another.

So, what’s with the shortage of workers? Are we deceived by the numbers and need to lure some of the AWOL job seekers back or do we need to find ways to do more work with fewer people because most people already have

work?

We decided to ask around. Most of the people we talked to for this article did not want their names or businesses made public, but they are all located in Catoosa and Walker counties. Where we’ve used names, they’ve been changed, unless otherwise noted, to protect people’s privacy.

This is not a comprehensive treatment of the subject but instead a ranging exploration of what people think.

Lisa has worked at a local home improvements store for nearly eight years. She sees daily the shortage of employees, as well as problems with new hires who sometimes don’t show up for even the first day of work. “It’s not unusual,” she says, “for a new employee to work for a few days or a week and quit. But longer-term employees are leaving, too.”

Lisa believes the trouble businesses have recruiting and retaining employees is partly pay. “Sometimes people are applying for multiple jobs at once and they’ll leave a new job for another one that comes along and pays more.”

Another problem, says Lisa, is that businesses are having to raise starting wages for new hires but they don’t raise them for long-existing employees. “Long-term employees just keep getting their three-percent annual pay raises and pretty soon new employees are making more than people who have worked there for years.”

Lisa took a higher-paying job someplace else for a while, then was offered a better pay rate to return to her former employer, a pay-raise she says she would never have seen if she had stayed. “That’s actually not why I changed jobs, but it was good to return to a more fair pay rate,” says the retail worker.

For months, a retailer in Fort Oglethorpe was having to close as many as four hours early three or four times a week because of too few employees. “That doesn’t happen as much anymore,” says the manager, “but we’re still almost always short-staffed.”

Jerry Sear (real name), before he retired and closed his shoe store in Fort Oglethorpe last year, says he was almost always actively hiring, especially during the pandemic. “People think about work different these days,” he says. “They have other things that are more important than working. They want to go to all their kids’ Little League games and birthday parties. Money doesn’t seem to be as important to them. They don’t think about planning for the future. Everything is about now.”

“Plus,” says Sear, “people can get help they couldn’t get in the past — food stamps, tax refunds, help with rent and heating. They don’t have to work as much.”

During the pandemic, the federal government was providing people with a fair amount of extra income: $1,200 per person stimulus checks that added up to good chuck for people who had a few children, supplemental unemployment insurance to the tune of an extra $600 a week, extra food stamps, protection against eviction for those who couldn’t pay their rent, delayed payment on mortgages without risk of foreclosure, paid Covid-19 pay for those who came down with it and sometimes for those who just got too close to it, and more.

Some say that all this, added to some other factors, changed a lot of people’s mindset about work. With schools closed and the need for one parent to stay home with the kids, says one Catoosa employer, “I think some families realized they could actually live on less and mom could quit working or just work for short spurts on and off to supplement the family’s income. The family could also collect more government benefits with only one parent working.”

“People had time and got used to a different outlook on life,” the employer continued. “I think they started to appreciate a life that didn’t center around working all the time. They had more downtime to enjoy life and they wanted to continue that. Or maybe some people are still trying to recover emotionally from it all and need some time off and they’re willing to live cheaper to get it.”

A Catoosa County couple, James and Stephanie, noted that the extreme extra hours they had to work during the pandemic took a toll on the quality of their lives. They examined their finances and decided they could get by okay on less pay. Stephanie quit her salaried position and took work as a parttime hourly worker. They say they have no regrets.

But as with the business at the top of this article, it’s even hard to hire enough professionals now. This impacts the lives of those who need professional services, especially medical care.

Medical offices, police departments, fire departments and many others are offering substantial incentives and bonuses for those willing to work. Even some fast food restaurants are offering incentives.

Lisa says that many people at the place she worked for a short while actually worked multiple jobs. Some of them held traditional jobs and some, she says, had “side gigs” like Uber driving or delivering pizzas. But in the three short months she worked there, she says four full-time employees left for better jobs.

Local government has also felt the squeeze to get as much done with fewer employees, though one Walker County employee says things are evening out. “Government doesn’t always pay as much as the public sector,” he says, “but the benefits are often better.”

One Walker County employer named Anne, who often can’t find the employees she needs on a part-time basis to do housework, says, “I kept raising the pay I was offering, but even at $20 an hour, I couldn’t find people — or someone would work for a day and get their money and not come back.”

Jerry Sear says he feels he retired at the right time. “The world is changing. Being in business is too hard for the small man. When I see all these new restaurants and other places opening up, I wonder if they’ve thought about where they’re going to find employees.”

We want to hear your stories. Do you own a business and have trouble finding and/ or keeping employees? Are you an employee who has changed your attitudes and/ or habits about work? Send your stories and thoughts to catoosacountynews@npco. com or walkercountynews@ npco.com.